


More Than I Have

by chainofclovers



Category: Grace and Frankie (TV)
Genre: COVID-19, F/F, Post-Season/Series 06
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:01:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23382004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chainofclovers/pseuds/chainofclovers
Summary: Well, I’m pretty sure Frankie’s literally never self-isolated for longer than ten minutes. She’s not gonna be a natural.
Relationships: Frankie Bergstein/Grace Hanson
Comments: 74
Kudos: 170





	More Than I Have

**Author's Note:**

> I'm still hard at work on the final two chapters of "To Justify What You Need," but have been struggling a lot with the fact that the story is set in November 2020 in a world in which COVID-19 does not exist. I have zero interest in writing a pandemic into that story, but it's also been hard to grapple with how surreal it is to write about things like existing in a crowded space since that isn't possible in actual life right now. My wife made the very helpful suggestion that I spend some time writing about Coronavirus as directly as possible, and that's what this story is. 
> 
> Content notes: everyone in this story is safe, and hopefully I do a good enough job acknowledging that the characters in this story enjoy certain privileges and protections that a lot of people in our society don't have. That being said, if you're looking for something that will make you forget about the global pandemic, this story is not it. <3

_I end my day on a tiny screen_

_I try to reach for you through the empty sheets_

_I close my eyes, and try to find some piece_

_Of what's left of us, and who we used to be_

— Sleater-Kinney, “The Future’s Here”

**0**

“So when she gets home don’t go see her in the studio under _any_ circumstances, okay?” Mallory says, a bit too loudly and slowly for Grace’s taste. Mallory has called from her apartment in San Francisco, but Grace can see her daughter’s serious expression as clearly as if they were sitting together on the living room couch. 

“I won’t!” says Grace. “Everyone’s told me eighteen times. Are your dad and Sol getting similarly emphatic instructions?”

Mallory sighs like she doesn’t have time for questions even though she’s the one who called Grace. “They’re obviously under the same protocol, but you’re the one we’re worried about. We know how you and Frankie are, and you haven’t seen her in a week as it is.”

Just the reminder makes Grace need a drink. Or something. “Do you really think I’d risk her health and mine just to—what, give her a welcome home hug?” 

“Well, I’m pretty sure Frankie’s literally never self-isolated for longer than ten minutes. She’s not gonna be a natural. And Jeremy’s boomer parents are being really stubborn.” For nearly as long as Mallory’s been in San Francisco, there’s been a man named Jeremy. He’s everything everybody else never was. “He calls to check up on them and they’re in, like, Lowes. Not social distancing at all.” 

“Let me guess,” Grace says, preferring to skip over all the Lowes talk altogether. She has her own history with home improvement chains. “They’re on a steady diet of Fox News and think Coronavirus is an overblown hoax.” 

“Pretty much.” 

“Well, I’m not an idiot and I’m too old to be a boomer. So you can stop worrying.” 

Mallory sighs again, this time with more patience. “Okay, Mom. Brianna’s bringing you guys more groceries tomorrow. She’ll text you when she’s put them on the porch.” 

“Thank you.” Grace should keep the conversation going now, since Mallory was polite enough to call. She should ask if Mallory’s miserable trying to handle childcare and working from home at the same time. She should find out if Taneth is tormenting her with unexpected FaceTime calls and Zoom meetings. She should acknowledge Maddie’s recent anxiety diagnosis—the issue she prevented Mallory from discussing during their spa day gone wrong—and she should find out how she’s adjusting to finishing out fourth grade on a laptop during a global pandemic. She’s tired, though, and she has less than an hour to try to get the studio ready before Frankie gets home and it’s off-limits again. “I hope you’re all doing okay,” she says. “Stay safe.” 

Grace is the one who first told Coyote, Jessica, and Frankie they needed to come home early from their long-awaited mother-son-son’s girlfriend trip to England. She texted Frankie when things started to look really bad for the U.S.: _Cheeto’s going to start closing borders, unclear when. You need to read the news and get back home as soon as you can_.

 _I’d really prefer it if you didn’t degrade the name of a perfectly good dehydrated snack food_ , Frankie had responded. But (thank God) she read the news and managed an early flight home. 

**1**

When Grace wakes up on the first day of Frankie’s quarantine, she can’t stop thinking about the night before, when she stood unnoticed at the window and watched Frankie emerge from Jessica’s car. (What if they hadn’t been running late at the start of the trip and had taken a Lyft to the airport from Coyote’s place like they’d originally planned? What if Jessica hadn’t driven them in her own car and left it at the airport? What if they’d had to expose and be exposed by even more strangers just to get the rest of the way home?)

Grace had watched Frankie hug Coyote and Jessica goodbye at the side of the car—her final hugs for at least two weeks. Frankie wore a mask, and her shoulders were slumped as she rolled her suitcase up the driveway. Frankie never realized Grace was watching, but that didn’t hurt her feelings—Grace realized then that she didn’t want to be seen. She didn’t want to spend the next two weeks standing a safe distance from Frankie trying to have a conversation about normal things or strange things or anything. 

When Frankie was settled in the studio, she called Grace to thank her for the food, cleaning supplies, and welcome home note. But she was exhausted from the long travel day and couldn’t talk long. 

Now Grace keeps thinking about how Frankie looked in the mask. It’s a new day, fresh with new questions, and she wants to call Frankie back and ask her how many frantic-for-home people got too close to her in the airport, and if Coyote and Jessica are going to be able to self-isolate together for fourteen days considering the time they already took off work for the trip, because they’d better follow the guidelines no matter what, and she wants to ask if Frankie has any grocery store requests for Brianna, and she even wants to ask her if she has a _feeling_ about whether or not she was exposed to COVID-19, if her lungs are giving her any early signs. 

Grace only has to go aimlessly insane for an hour or so before Frankie sends the first texts of the day: 

_Thx again for the whole CORNUCOPIA 19 setup xoxo_

_* COVID-19 (auto “correct” obviously)_

_I Lysoled the fuck out of the thresholds and now I’m having some of that granola!_

_GIF of a lady sitting alone gratefully eating the granola her best friend made her during a worldwide tragedy_

The last text makes Grace smile even bigger than the first three. They’d had some confusion a few months ago, when Frankie started texting her GIF descriptions instead of actual GIFs. “Are you accidentally sending me the text from an image search?” Grace asked, back in a quaint time when Frankie could message her from across the room and she could answer in person if she wanted to.

“No,” Frankie had explained, “I’m on-purpose sending you descriptions of the GIFs I’d send you if said GIFs existed. My GIF needs are way more specific than what any of the GIF-makers could’ve anticipated.”

 _Call me when you’re done with breakfast!_ Grace texts back now. _I have questions._

**2**

Symptoms of COVID-19 may appear two to fourteen days post-exposure. On day two, Grace considers making CDC.gov her homepage. 

_I don’t like being high-risk *anything*_ , Frankie texts, almost like she’s reading the CDC website too.

Grace thinks about strokes, about tremors, about the brittleness of bones. About warehouses, and public transit, and new definitions of personal space. Flu season, and allergies, and common colds, and temperature spikes. Time spent on the planet as a corollary to the likelihood of leaving it. 

She types and deletes _I miss you_. Settles on a different message: _Yeah. Me either. You feeling okay?_

**3**

“Frankie’s too anxious to paint,” Sol announces at dinner. 

It was Robert’s night to cook; dinner is shepherd’s pie with beef instead of lamb and a few other substitutions. It’s pretty delicious, but everything Grace has eaten so far congeals in her stomach as she listens to Robert and Sol chat about Frankie’s struggle to paint. Frankie often paints _when_ she’s anxious, Sol explains, so she must be really scared. 

Shame is the thing that’s actually congealing inside her, because Grace can’t focus on Frankie’s fear, can’t contribute any tidbits to the conversation, can’t get to sympathy or empathy, can’t find and share a related anecdote. All she can think about is her jealousy that when Frankie tried to paint and couldn’t, she talked to Sol and not her. 

**4**

**__**_I miss you!_ Frankie texts. _Facetiming you RIGHT NOW, ready or not!_ 🥰 🥰 🥰 

It’s only 7 a.m. Grace is still in bed, and she’s barely read the text when Frankie’s face fills the screen and she scrambles to accept the call. “Hi!” Frankie shouts. “You look so sleepy and cute.” 

“Ha, ha.” 

“I realize we could probably, like, stand on either side of the patio and talk to each other in real life, but it’s too fuckin’ weird.” 

“It would hurt too much,” Grace says. She’d only wanted to agree, but as soon as the words are out she realizes they were far too intense. She tries to laugh. “Hey, what’s ten more days of praying you don’t become symptomatic?” 

Frankie doesn’t join her in laughter. Her expression says she’s still stuck on the hurting. “I missed that rabid Scorpio intensity on our super chill trip to England,” she says. She sighs. “And I still miss it. You. The rest of England. But hey, it’s noon there, and my body is halfway between there and here at this point in the jetlag, so at least I’m up early and can hang out with you while you’re still in bed.” 

“And that benefits whom?” 

Frankie grins. “Me.” 

Grace doesn’t know what she’s smiling about—she almost never does—but she grins back. She watches their faces on the screen—looks at herself looking at Frankie, and looking at herself, looks at Frankie looking at her, and maybe looking at herself—until she feels about a million mirrors deep. In the rectangle of her phone screen, the brightest thing in her room, there’s a version of her and Frankie in the same place. For a few good minutes, that’s all that matters. 

**5**

“We should see if Frankie wants to play,” Grace says casually as she and Robert clear the last of the dinner dishes and Sol spreads out the Scrabble board. 

“Grace, she’s only five days in,” says Robert. “If Corona doesn’t kill us, the kids will.” 

“Not in person,” Grace says, taking her smartphone from her pocket and shaking it in Robert’s direction. There are nearly eight billion people in the world, and the only two humans she doesn’t have to social-distance from are Robert Hanson and Sol Bergstein. What are the fucking odds. 

“Dumb it down for me,” Sol says patiently when they’re all back at the table. “That farm thing on Facebook is the only internet game I’ve played.” 

“We could all get on FaceTime,” Grace explains, “and, um, somebody could draw for Frankie and angle their phone so she can see her letters, and somebody else’s phone could be on the board, and somebody else’s phone could be on us so she can see us, and she could call me on the landline and tell me where to put the letters, and—” Robert and Sol are staring. “Never mind.” It’s too complicated, and she regrets even making the suggestion.

“I know you miss her,” Robert says, “but that does not sound fun.” There’s a gentleness in his voice, a carefulness that threatens to anger her. Threatens to take her right out of the Scrabble mood altogether. 

**6**

“This pandemic is gonna last long enough that you’ll see me with grey hair,” Grace says into the FaceTime screen. 

“Oh my God, you’re right,” says Frankie. “I’d be happy to give you a creative haircut.” 

“Frankie, everything is so weird. One moment I’m looking at a website tracking all the confirmed cases and deaths and recoveries everywhere in the world, because, you know, we’re in a pandemic and people are dying and it’s horrific. Then I close the page and suddenly I’m thinking about how this pandemic is literally giving me grey hair. How is it possible to think all that within three minutes? What’s wrong with me?” There’s definitely something wrong with her. Something existential. Something that makes it not matter if it’s morning or evening, Tuesday or Saturday. For long stretches of time, she hardly has an age or a gender, hardly has a face. 

“Nothing,” Frankie says. She speaks with confidence. “I think that’s just being a person.” 

**7**

“I didn’t hear from you much today,” Grace says during her and Frankie’s goodnight chat. “Everything all right?” She’s sitting on the edge of her bed, and she runs the fingers of her free hand against her comforter. She wishes she’d used FaceTime instead of making a regular voice call—there aren’t that many places Frankie could be, but she wants to be able to picture exactly where she is. 

“Yeah, actually,” Frankie says. “For now, anyway.” She pauses; Grace waits. “I’ve wanted to paint something about being alone. About”—she adopts a mocking tone—“my experience with _quarantine_. But I have it so much better than basically everyone. I’m still healthy and I’ve got a comfortable place to be and I’m not going to go broke and I like my doctor and I have decent insurance—”

“It’s still hard,” Grace says softly. “You’re very social.” 

“I’m extroverted as hell. Even when I’m—when I’m shy. That part’s okay, though. I know this is temporary. My tiny little inconsequential problem is that I’ve been wanting to paint and I can’t go back to what I was doing before, and every time I think about being alone right now I can’t paint that either. But this morning I started painting you. You’re standing by yourself a little way down the beach with very shiny grey hair, and I can’t get to you yet but I will, and you’re like—you’re like a _goal_. You’re like the end of quarantine. If that makes sense. I’ve spent almost the whole day on it.” 

“Oh.” She doesn't know what to say. “Thank you.” 

“By the way, you’re going to look good with grey hair,” Frankie says, as if she hasn’t just called Grace ‘the end of quarantine,’ as if she doesn’t even notice the enormity of that compliment, as if this isn’t the most massive thing she’s said to her since the year they realized they were permanently friends. 

“What a relief,” Grace says lightly. The words have no setting, no place to land. As words alone, they feel so weak. 

**8**

Robert turns the TV off and turns to Grace with a fond smile. Sol’s wandered off somewhere, and there’s a tiny part of Grace that rushes back to her past life, alone with Robert so much of the time, and unsure what to say to him nearly as often as that. “We’ve talked a lot about Frankie alone out there in the studio,” Robert says, “but how are you holding up?” 

“Um—”

“You’re not exactly into crowds. Social distancing probably isn’t so bad?” 

Grace looks down at her lap. “I wish I could go to the farmers’ market with Frankie again,” she says. She’s thought of the memory of their most recent trip a lot today. Color everywhere, people everywhere, a thousand conversations other than her own, all ordinary then and extraordinary now. She hadn’t paid much attention at the time to the buskers playing guitar, but her memory gives her their song. 

“You will,” Robert says. “Just not for awhile.” He stops talking for nearly too long, then says one more thing, already on his way up from the couch to find his husband. “Make sure she knows you miss that memory.” 

**9**

**__**_Have a drink with me tonight at 7_ , Grace texts. _I’ll make you whatever you want_.

 _!!!_ , replies Frankie. _I’ll have what you’re having._

At 6:55, Grace leaves the house holding the perfect dry martini and a stick of pink chalk that really shouldn’t have ended up in the kitchen junk drawer but managed to find a home there anyway. She draws a heart on the ground outside the entrance to the studio and sets the martini inside. The windows are open but there’s no sign of Frankie, and that’s fine by her—she’s still afraid of the weirdness of in-person at a distance. 

At 7, they toast over video chat. “I wish we could go to the farmers’ market,” Grace says after they take the first sip. She’s in danger of stammering, in danger of making the moment too much or not enough or something more wrong than everything that’s already wrong. But it's already taken her a day to figure out what to do with Robert’s advice, and she has to say something. “I wish we were standing together in a huge crowd of people.” 

Frankie’s face warms. “How huge?” 

“Hundreds of people. Maybe thousands.” Suddenly, tears threaten her eyes. “But mostly just you.” 

Frankie nods, serious. “I really miss you.” 

“I need you to be okay.” 

“I’m pretty sure I am.” She takes a deep breath and exhales at her phone. “See? I’m totally fine.” 

“You need to stay that way,” Grace says. 

“When we get to hang out for real again, we won’t have to stand six feet apart from each other, right?” 

“No!” Grace says. “I mean, I wouldn’t think so. You shouldn’t have to social distance from the person you live with, especially if neither of you have been exposed for fourteen days.” 

“Cool,” Frankie says. She takes another drink of her martini and puckers her lips in the direction of the glass. “So, you know, that could be interesting. Not standing six feet apart from each other.” 

“Yeah,” Grace says. She doesn’t know what to say again. This time the problem isn’t a blank mind but a dozen unfinished sentences. 

**10**

The tenth day of Frankie’s self-isolation is the best day in a long time. It’s been a couple weeks since the U.S.-based factory that makes Vybrant products—among other things—has produced a single Ménage à Moi. But when Grace is on a mid-morning call to discuss existing supply with the distributor, she finds out the facility has reopened with a reduced, socially-distanced staff working voluntarily on overtime pay to make PPE. By the afternoon, she and Frankie have enlisted Bud’s legal help in liberating the couch money—leftover from a marriage that feels half a lifetime ago by now—from the freezer. Protective gear seems more important than resurrecting the Rise Up. By the evening, the Vybrant website is updated with a fundraiser to keep the PPE manufacturing effort going longer. 

She ends the day satisfied. Sure, she might be a semi-retired vibrator salesperson. She might be “high-risk.” She might be an emotional mess. But because of her and Frankie (and Bud, and Nick, in his way, and even Miriam, and everyone and everything), more health care providers will have access to the masks they need to do their jobs. 

Her phone chimes with a text from Frankie right as she climbs into bed: _Felt great to be busy_. _Good work, lady._ 💓 

**11**

**__**_Send me a pic?_ Frankie texts around ten o’clock at night. _Just whatever you’re doing right now._

Grace is reading _Circe_ in bed when the text arrives. She sets the book down on her lap, splayed open to keep her page. She snaps a quick picture of the spine and sends it to Frankie. 

The response is almost immediate: _That isn’t a picture of you_

It takes a while for Grace to capture a photo she’s willing to send. The final result is mostly lamplight, and she doesn’t hate what the glow does to her skin. She’s unsmiling but doesn’t look unhappy. She’s looking at Frankie, or imagining she is, and as she sends the photo she hopes Frankie can tell. _Goodnight_ , she types as soon as she’s sent the picture. She silences her phone and turns out the light. 

**12**

There’s an email from Frankie waiting when she wakes up. 

_Grace,_

_Just a couple days left before we get to select the number of feet between us. It feels very formal and official! I’m going a little crazy! I’m up late smoking a little bit (got to pace myself re: current stash) and I don’t want to bug you texting every thought as it occurs to me._

_Thinking a lot about the picture you sent, and about the picture I’m painting of you. You’re so beautiful, and I don’t want to ignore your beauty anymore. I think most everyone’s afraid of wasting their life, and that’s the way I risk wasting mine: by continuing to ignore your brain and body._

_(Not that friendship = ignoring)_

_(Just that I only ever say a fraction of the things I think about you)_

_Can it be different after isolation...that’s the question I keep asking myself, and now ask of you—_

_I love you (no matter what)_

_F_

Grace closes her eyes not to remove the words but to see them more fully. 

When she’s ready, she types a response:

_Yes, Frankie. It can be different. I love you too._

They spend the whole day emailing each other. It’s not a cop-out, Grace realizes—it’s another way of talking. And unlike the way some conversations become lacy-edged, and texts disappear when you switch phones, these love letters will last forever. Frankie writes that she wants her breasts touched. She writes that physical things make her nervous and that she’ll need a lot of conversation, and no surprises at first. Grace writes that she wants to be touched before she’s quite ready, not forcefully or in a way that would cause any pain, but because she wants her partner to feel her body change. Frankie reminds her she cooked up a new batch of lube right before the England trip (chore unrelated to trip). Grace writes that Frankie can ask her to talk more if she forgets and isn’t talking enough. _I’ve been thinking about this forever,_ Frankie writes, _and now I’m just saying it, like it’s—not nothing, but okay?!?!_

The emails are a blizzard. For an entire day, the whiteout storm is the only thing Grace can see. 

That night they leave FaceTime going even when the lights are out and they’re falling asleep. It feels good to refuse to say goodbye. 

**13**

**__** _GIF of a woman fucking herself_

**14**

On the last day, Grace texts everyone—the kids, a few friends—sensible things about how well Frankie’s doing, how carefully she self-isolated. How that part is almost over now, but there’s no need to worry—they’re prepared to keep staying home. 

Frankie can’t stop texting her: 

_Last day last day last day_

_Just took my temp. 98.6. IT’S A CLASSIC FOR A REASON!_

_Lysol party, windows open. My objectivity is dramatically depleted but I think it smells good in here!_

_Is it weird to be nervous quarantine’s almost over?_

_Nevermind, all change is weird_

_Holy fuck, the 14 days wrap up at midnight_

_Come see me at midnight?_

_And kiss me?_

The further Grace gets in the day, the longer it takes each minute to pass. She takes a shower around eleven o’clock at night, then realizes she doesn’t know whether to get ready for bed or for a new day because her destination includes both at once. She opts for fresh-faced and pajama-clad, does the best she can with her hair. 

**15**

The studio smells like pot and countertop cleaner and paint, all cut with fresh night air. Frankie is there the moment Grace opens the door. Her body is real and warm, and so is her mouth, and her hands in Grace’s hair. The kiss is the most solid thing Grace has felt in years, or maybe ever. 

When Frankie pulls away, they stand clutching each other in the doorway. Grace looks over Frankie’s shoulder and sees the back of the easel that must hold the painting of her. She feels Frankie sigh against her. “I know we still have to stay home for a really long time,” Frankie says. “But you being here makes the universe feel big enough again.” 

She grabs Grace’s hand and pulls. As Grace steps into the studio, she’s aware of leaving the horrible old world behind—at least for a little while—and walking into the new one they get to build together.

_I need you more than I ever have_

_Because the future's here, and we can't go back_

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! These are very strange and upsetting times, and while I'd love to know your response to this story, I'd also welcome any thoughts on how you're doing and feeling! Creative human connection is the thing that makes it possible to move forward.


End file.
